sudden inspiration
by nellia cimor
Summary: what if morgan kissed garcia? what if, against all our shipper hopes, she wasn't ready for it and reacted badly? and what if that sent everything else into chaos? PG/DM. rated T for now...
1. Chapter 1: 'the kiss'

[a/n: this was actually written before my story 'body language' and i forgot to post it. the idea behind this story is the thought that, what if morgan kissed garcia, but she wasn't ready for it? what if she reacted badly? what if it sent everything into chaos? i hope it is enjoyable. i had lots of fun writing just this part. more to come!]

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CRIMINAL MINDS OR ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HERE IN. i merely like to watch the world burn from time to time... *evil grin*

... He shoved her against the wall forcefully, an intense look in his eyes.

"Derek? what are you-?" but he was beyond listening anymore. he lent in and kissed her fiercely.

All logical thought, all case related materiel, flew from her mind. It was as if all of her bodily functions had frozen, suspended in time and space. There was nothing but the stark, shocking reality of her present situation – Derek Morgan had her pinned to the wall. He was her best friend and he was kissing her. Not just kissing her; He was all up in her Penelope-ness with his Derek-ness, and all she could think about was how wrong this was. Derek Morgan should not be kissing her! What kind of co-worker slash best friend was he pretending to be? She had to end this right here, right now.. Penelope pushed firmly against Derek's chest with her bangled and bedecked palm until he relinquished his grip on her and let her pull away. She took in a deep gasp of air and flashed him a 'you're crazy' warning look before she started to speak, "What the heck are you doing?", she demanded in a barely contained whisper.

"What the heck am I doing?", the hurt and indignation in Derek's voice was evident, "What the heck are you doing, p? Everyday you walk through these halls showin' everybody in this building what you got going on, and every day you tease and flirt and push and pull the heart strings in men's hearts. Everyday I have to sit behind my desk and know that you've got to go home to some grease ball boyfriend who thinks you're neat 'cause you can do a few tricks with a keyboard and mouse and he likes that 'cause he thinks that makes you both the same. Big whoop! You are more then just a geek in a hacker suite, Penelope! He doesn't go to your plays! He never takes you out to the movies! He offers you those disgusting bacon covered doughnuts because he's too stupid to realize you're a vegetarian and have better sense then to put something like bacon on doughnuts! And he doesn't value the commitment you've made to always put you're work before you're relationships! Why did you flirt with me all that time, and then when he showed up, dropped me like third period Spanish? What part of 'I love you, you know that right?' didn't you understand? Can you please tell me, 'cause I'd really like to know!"

Penelope was so past the point of confused. Why was he telling her all of this now? She had been dating Kevin for three years, and he had never mentioned a single misgiving about their relationship before a few intense seconds ago. Her mind was reeling and her head was splitting and the thing she needed the most right now was her best friend, and since he seemed to have exploded into all sorts of crazy at the moment, a cool, dark, preferably void of twilight-zone-ness place where she could sort through her thoughts and perhaps have a good cry coupled with a calming batch of tea, would have to do. "I can't talk to you right now, Derek", she managed to choke out through a mixture of partial paralysis and the forth coming tide of tears as she raised her arm out in front of herself, hoping it would create enough of a barrier between them to keep him at bay. She felt very light headed all of a sudden and threw out her right arm behind her to the wall for support. When her hand came into contact with the wall it made her memory flash back to a few moments ago when Derek had held her captive there. This made her stomach give a small lurch and incurred further waves of dizziness. She needed to get out of here now.. "I have to get out of here..", she croaked as she staggered toward the glass door of the bullpen, flinging it open and hastening to her escape.

"Hey!, we're not done talkin' here, Penelope!", Derek called after her retreating form, still fuming and uncaring. "Penelope?"

But she was already half way out of the main offices, on the other side of the pit, and picking up speed as she got further away from Derek.

Derek slammed the door to the bullpen closed, enraged. He paced violently and ran his hands over his head in frustration. This was turning into the worst day of work in his life, and he'd just made it worse.

[a/n: sorry it's so short, but paragraph spacing is not cutting it, so i'll have to break it up in a bunch of small chapters. love y'all. peace.]


	2. Chapter 2: 'the reaction'

[a/n: part two! the teams reaction :) enjoy.]

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CRIMINAL MINDS OR ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HERE IN. i merely like to watch the world burn from time to time... *evil grin*

Rossi stood open mouthed in the doorway to his office for a good few minutes after the scene he'd just witnessed had ended. He might be old and his eyes, he begrudgingly admitted, weren't what they used to be and sometimes they could maybe play tricks on him.. but what he had just seen took the cake. Heck, it took the whole god-damned bakery! What in the name of god's green earth had possessed Morgan to assault Garcia like that? In the middle of their work place? In full view of the entire office? Granted, there weren't many agents in the pit at the moment, and none of them were from their team except for Reid who most likely hadn't noticed anyway, but still!.. something was definitely going on here and he was determined to get to the bottom of it, but he first decided he should go warn Hotch. Rossi quickly strode to the unit chief's office and half entered the doorway stopping just short and catching Hotch's attention.

"Dave?", Aaron asked with a slightly puzzled, slightly worried, slightly annoyed look on his face glancing up from a report, "Is anything the matter?" , and then when he didn't answer right away, he asked in a more worried tone, "What's happened? Why are you just standing there and not saying anything? Is it about the cut backs? Have you heard something?-"

David mercifully cut him off, "There is something you need to see.."

Hotch asked no more questions, but stood immediately and followed Dave to his office. He waited patiently for Dave to explain.

"You see Morgan over there in the bullpen?", Dave asked as casually as he could, pretending to look at his fingers.

Hotch took a quick, side-long glance at his agent. He could see him still pacing back and forth in front of the glass walls. "Yes, he asked permission to use the space earlier this morning for finishing his paper work. He and Garcia were going to work together to scan all the documents into our data base. Speaking of which, she should be in there right now-"

"Oh, she was", Dave eluded sardonically, trying to soften the eventual blow, "up until a few minutes ago.."

"I don't follow", Hotch stated, cutting straight to the chase.

"Well, that was until agent Morgan-", here he used the man's name with disdain, and pointed an accusing finger, "- got the unstoppable urge to shove the aforementioned miss Garcia up against the far left-hand wall and 'accost' her rather unnecessarily."

"Morgan hit Garcia?", Hotch asked aghast. He was instantly infuriated.

Dave nodded, still with partial sarcasm, as he added, "You might say that.. though i think he was going for more of a romantic angle then a bone-crushing one.."

Hotch just stared in disbelief at avid for a few moments before he uttered, "You mean he kissed her?" All of a sudden he felt very embarrassed on behalf of his poor technical analyst. "I really have to get this team drug tested.. Wait, what happened to Garcia?"

Dave turned rather more serious as he answered. "Looks like she didn't take it too well. She managed to pry him off her and give him what for before he started telling her off. She got kind of unstable near the end and stumbled out door. Lord knows where she is now."

"Did you hear what they were arguing about?", Hotch asked.

"No", Dave answered, "Most likely angry whispers, but it was pretty evident that it wasn't the happiest conversation on earth.."

Hotch nodded. "Thank you for telling me. I'll handle this." Hotch breezed past David in search of Emily. He now had a plan.

"Better you then me..", Dave half smiled as he turned back into his office.

[a/n: next one will be a bit longer.]


	3. Chapter 3 : 'friends will be friends'

[a/n: part three! i brought emily in because she's tough yet kind, and if she needed to, she could kick morgan's ass on behalf of garcia. however, this story will have a happy ending if i have anything to say about. stay tuned..]

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CRIMINAL MINDS OR ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HERE IN. i merely like to watch the world burn from time to time... *evil grin*

"Emily-", Hotch began as he approached her, as she in turn arrived at her desk and put down her bag.

"Hey, Hotch", she smiled friendly, her grin widening as she noticed the state he was in, "Man, you look like crap-"

"Emily", he warned in a hushed tone that demanded immediate cessation of poking any fun in light of serious events.

Emily immediately pooled her focus. "What? What's wrong? Is everything alright?"

"It's Garcia and Morgan", Hotch explained, not wasting anytime, "Dave just told me they had a fight in the bullpen earlier. He says Garcia looked pretty shaken up when she left. Could you go check on her? Make sure she's okay?"

"Yeah", Emily breathed in shock, "Yeah, I'll head over to her office right now." and she waited for no further instructions, but began to stride away immediately.

"Thanks", Hotch muttered as she passed by him.

She turned back with a nod of affirmation before she continued on her way.

Meanwhile, Penelope was slumped with her head in her arms on her desk in her lair with the lights out and nothing but the soft glow of two screens for comfort. She had turned off the rest of her monitors in despair and languished, emotionally spent, in the dark; because that's how she felt. Her world had been thrust into chaos and undoing by the man she trusted the most in the world and she was just supposed to go on like everything was champagne and daffodils? No – she was done with bubbly, and cute, and witty-remarks and all she wanted to do right now was pretend she hadn't even come to work this morning and this was all a horrible nightmare she would wake up from soon. A knock on her door deprived her of this wish. "Garcia? It's Emily.. Is it okay if I come in?"

Garcia tried to reply, she really did, but nothing would come out. Wow, she really was done with witty-remarks. This filled her heart with a dull, creeping fear, but she didn't have the strength to care all that much at the moment.

"Garcia?.." Emily risked foregoing Penelope's strict rules on gaining permission before entrance, and opened her door to peek inside. At first she didn't see the tech lying prone on the desk, but quickly realized her mistake and entered the room, her concern mounting for her friend as she closed the door behind herself. "Penelope, are you okay?"

"No", Penelope managed to rasp after what seemed like an enormous effort.

Emily balked. Garcia sounded terrible! Worse then she had ever thought possible! "Oh my god, p, what happened?" Emily tried to coax Penelope into lifting her head off the desk, so that she could get a better look at her. She turned Penelope's purple desk lamp on for want of more light. Garcia recoiled slightly, lifting her head and rubbing at her eyes.

Emily's mouth fell open, aghast. The entire top portion of Penelope's face was smeared with a mixture of multi-colored eye shadow, mascara, and dried and wet tears, there were various tear tracks running vertically down her friend's cheeks, and even her traditional hot rod red lipstick looked as if it had been forcibly removed by the applicant. Sure enough, Emily noticed a balled up and stained piece of tissue in Penelope's left hand.

Penelope sniffled and, needing a double-take, noticed Emily eyeing her in utter disbelief. "oh come on, Emily. Please stop staring at me like I've just confessed to murder.."

"That might be less shocking then you'd think if you could see yourself", Emily admitted, only half in jest.

"Oh god, don't tell me(!)", Penelope muttered into her hands, mortified that anyone was seeing her like this.

"That must have been some fight", Emily commented, still staring. She just couldn't take it in. This wasn't their Penelope; this was an entirely different creature.

Penelope froze in sudden terror. "How do you know about that?"

"Hotch said Rossi saw you two have a fight in the bullpen", Emily answered, shrugging.

"Oh noooooooooo..", Penelope lamented as she sunk back onto her desk, face in her hands.

Emily didn't quite understand. "Geez, how embarrassing was it?"

Penelope peeked out between her fingers at Emily with a 'you've got to be frickin' kidding me' look and followed with, "I'm pretty sure it can go on record as the worst day in my life."

"Worse then getting shot?", Emily chuckled, but her smile slid away as Penelope remained stoic. "Oh come on, really?"

Penelope sighed, resigned. If it was going to be all over the office anyway, she might as get the story straight. "It came out of nowhere, Em. One minute we were discussing the cases, and then he brought up something about Kevin that I can't even remember now, and he was being insistent about it, and I told him to drop it, that it wasn't important, and if it was we could talk about it later, that we had cases to work on, but he wouldn't shut up and it was getting kind of annoying, so I said 'just shut up, Derek', and he usually does, but this time he-" Penelope paused, fresh tears forming in her eyes, she was finding it difficult to continue, "-he sh-shoved me int-to the wall, and I t-tried asking him what the h-heck he th-thought he was d-doing, but.." but Penelope's voice gave out.

"What?", Emily asked with apprehension as she watched Penelope fall apart before eyes, "What did he do to you?"

Penelope growled in frustration at her own lack of will, "And that's when he kinda, sorta.. kis-sed m-e..", she ground out.

Emily burst out laughing. She couldn't help it. "So he finally couldn't take it anymore, could he?Well, I'm not surprised.."

"Emily!, It's not funny!", Penelope scolded, though she could see that it probably sounded pretty ridiculous on her end, "And what do you mean you're not surprised?"

"You haven't spoken to Kevin yet today, have you?", Emily asked evasively.

"Oh my god. That's what Derek said! He asked me if I had spoken to Kevin yet today! I said I hadn't.. What's so important about Kevin this morning?"

"Um, don't know if I should be telling you this, but Kevin has something he wants to ask you. He seemed pretty excited about it last night when he told everyone he ran into in the BAU."

"What?", Penelope balked, "What does he want to ask me?"

"Uh, I think you better go ask him that..", Emily answered, slyly giving no further information.

"Well I can't go now!", Penelope fretted, reaching for her bag and trying to locate her emergency make-up kit. "I'm a monster in this- Oh lord.." Penelope sighed in despair, finally catching a glimpse of herself in her compact mirror, "I look like death a la clown."

"Here, I'll help", Emily offered, quickly swiping some tissues from the box on Penelope's desk. Penelope had no time to argue. She needed all the help she could get.

[a/n: next chappy will involve penelope confronting kevin, which i'm really looking forward to writing, because it's not what you think :) have a nice day.]


	4. Chapter 4 : 'the proposition'

[a/n: i stopped posting on this for awhile because i watched the season finale of criminal minds, and was like 'i can't post this now because they'll think i stole the idea!' which i didn't, for the record. i was sooooo pissed! anyway, working on a proper ending for this chappy. it will be up soon. cheers.]

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CRIMINAL MINDS OR ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HERE IN. i merely like to watch the world burn from time to time... *evil grin*

Penelope had chosen a flame-patterned eye shadow with pink glitter highlights to hide the fact that she'd been crying, and had smoothed out and tied back her hair with ribbons to hide the fact that Derek had been messing with it previously and that she had been running her fingers through it in frustration afterwards. After Emily had helped her regain her courage with a heart-felt pep talk, Penelope was determined to go ask Kevin what he was so excited to ask her about.

"and it better god-damned be worth it after this morning..", she muttered rather angrily to herself as she turned the corner to the tech room.

Kevin looked up in surprise as Penelope came breezing into the room. He felt rather flattered. "You came to visit me! You never come to visit me. I always visit you-"

"-Emily said there was something you wanted to ask me", Penelope interrupted rather more forcefully then she had intended. She cleared her throat with a small cough and apologized, "Erm, sorry."

"No, no!", he rushed to get her a spare chair so she could sit down, "That's alright! I was planning on asking you later, you know, when we were alone, but we're pretty much alone in here so I guess that's alright.." he smiled and held out his hand to her, the other hand on his spare swivel chair.

She smiled slightly. Sometimes he could be a little adorkable. She took his hand and had a seat next to him.

"Now", Kevin began once they were both seated comfortably, "Now this is just an idea, and you can say no if you want to, but I thought, since it's been awhile now we've been going out, that maybe we could perhaps sorta.." he paused bracing for rejection, "..move in together?" he managed to squeak out.

Penelope's face lit up. He wanted to move in with her. This was great! It would give her an excuse to clean out her apartment and redecorate a smidge; she adored decorating, obviously. "Kevin, yes! We can totally move in together! I love it!"

Kevin was elated and relieved. "I'm so glad. I was worried you wouldn't want to leave your old apartment.." he laughed.

Penelope's excitement faded slightly. She didn't want to leave her old apartment. "You don't want to move into my apartment?"

"Well, no", Kevin answered, worry creeping back into his voice, "It is a bit small for the two of us, besides I was thinking we could get a slightly nicer one then we could both afford on our own."

She let the comment that her apartment wasn't nice slide as she thought about the positives. He was right in that her apartment would probably be too small for them both once he moved his belongings in, and it would be nice to have a slightly snazzier place.. Yeah, she could live with that. "Okay.." she agreed after careful thought, "As long as I get to paint some walls."

"Sure thing", Kevin agreed, smiling, "As long as we both agree on the colors."

"Such as..?", Penelope asked, starting to regret this conversation.

"Well, I mean, don't get me wrong; I love colors too!, It's just.. I don't necessarily want walls that are hot pink or neon green or . . purple.."

Penelope had to take offence to that; her walls were purple. "And what's wrong with purple?"

"Well, it's not very gender neutral.."

Penelope was completely floored; He had no idea what he was talking about! "Purple so can be a masculine and feminine color! At least it's not burgundy or tuscany brown or, echk!, forest green!"

"What's wrong with forest green?", Kevin asked beginning to become rather defensive.

"It's so bland, Kevin(!)", Penelope rolled her eyes in frustration, "It's so generic, so ordinary, so- so- un-me!" she threw her hands up in abject anger at the unfairness of it all. She had always been taught to live loud and proud, and she could not understand his need for symmetry. "Life is chaos! If I don't have color or knick-knacks I go crazy! I need china kittens and hummel figurines, Kevin", she warned, "I need a space, however small, to be me."

Kevin sighed irritably, "Look, I'm sure we can come to some sort of compromise.. Will you at least think about it?"

Penelope nodded reluctantly, "Yes."

"Okay then", Kevin breathed out in relief, "now, I don't mean to be a jerk, but we really should be getting back to work."

"Yeah, I guess", Penelope complied, rising from the chair, at a loss for more to say, "I'll see you later then.."

"Mmhmm", was all he replied as he was already engrossed in new data searches.

She left the room without another word, but so much weighing on her mind. This was going to be some adventure.. she just wasn't sure if it was an adventure she was willing to take anymore. If they were arguing about colors now, she shuttered to think what else they would clash on. The more Penelope thought about it, the more she realized she was in over her head. They'd never discussed what their tastes in home decor would be should they ever move in together. Who would? There was always so many other things to talk about, like comics and techno-babble and stuff that was so totally not even close to domestic. Why she had said yes?

"So!, He ask you yet?", Emily smiled giddily, popping out of nowhere and nearly giving Penelope a heart attack.

"Geez, Em!", Penelope wheezed, her momentary bout of terror easing away, "Can't a girl have fair warning before she gets bombarded in the hallway?"

Emily raised her eyebrows at Penelope as if to say 'really?, you chose to phrase it like that?'

Penelope rolled her eyes at her own special brand of slow, "You're right. Definitely not the best way of wording it this morning.." she raised her eyes from floor level as both she and Emily, who was following and awaiting intel, rounded the corner leading toward her sanctuary. However, Penelope spotted Derek striding toward her and stopped dead in her tracks. Frack. She turned on her heels and immediately started back the way she had come.

Derek spotted her and broke into a jog to catch up to her, but he was stopped by Emily with her arms crossed across her chest and a determined look in her eyes. Derek tried to side step Emily, but found himself blocked once again. "Come on, Prentiss. Let me through", Derek said, trying to peer around her and not lose sight of Garcia.

"And why would I do that?", Emily quarried rather impetuously, getting right up in Derek's face.

"Come on, I just want to say I'm sorry", Derek tried to reason.

"And you think she's just gonna forgive you?", Emily asked, surprised at Derek. He had some nerve!

"Well, why not?", Derek grumbled, knowing he was only digging himself in deeper, but unsure of how to get out.

"Why not?" Emily shook her head in indignation, and tried to recapture the ability of speech. He couldn't really be that thick skulled. She knew he wasn't. It was impossible to comprehend. "Derek, you broke her trust in you. I'd be surprised if she ever speaks to you again(!)"


End file.
